Coaching experiences

There was a period when I was in Melbourne and I was jobless for a couple of months. I was hoping to find my ideal job - something that combined engineering and sports, or something technical but interesting like product design and development. I couldn't find any. It was around mid of spring and I noticed there were some job advertisements looking for sports coaches in various suburbs. I decided to apply for one since I did have some coaching experience. Within a couple of days, a guy called me to arrange for an interview and after the interview, I was hired!

So this guy (the boss) that hired me runs a company that organizes after-school sports programs for preps to year 4 (around 5 - 9 year olds)  and basically I get assigned a couple of schools where the sports programs are held and I run the program. The sports I have to 'coach' include basketball, cricket & soccer. But because the kids are so young, I couldn't make it too difficult. So I had to incorporate games half the time (actually it was 90% of the time) while teaching them some skills of playing the different sports.  

Now before I started on the job, the boss gave me and a few other new 'coaches' a training session on how to run a sports program. There was sort of a guideline as to how each session should start and end and it was important to lay down the ground rules for the kids before each session started. When I first learned about that, I was thinking: "do I really have to lay down the ground rules to the same kids EVERY session?".

Anyway, my first session was together with an experienced coach so I was more of an assistant or under-study. He gave instructions to the kids, split them into groups for different activities, taught them simple ball handling skills and organized games for them.The kids were a little chaotic and not following instructions at times (which is very normal) but he had the ultimate 'secret weapon' which brings things back to order - the coach's whistle. Once the whistle was blown, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the coach. It was really effective. But somehow at that point, I didn't feel that the whistle would be necessary, so I decided that I would do something different for my own sessions.

The boss called me to follow up on my first session. I told him it was all good and I feel confident to take a session on my own. So the following week, I was assigned to coach 2 schools. I went with no whistle for the first week and I was totally owned by the kids. They were all over the place, balls were flying everywhere, random shouting and screaming, total chaos. I would teach them the rules of a game, give them the balls and they will follow my instructions for 30 seconds (or less) and then one kid will suggest doing something else with the ball, proceed with his own suggestion, another kid comes up with another great idea and within 10 seconds every kid is doing their own thing.

Well, subsequently I got myself a whistle and it became slightly better. The whistle definitely got the kids' attention. But there are a few things that don't change. Firstly, every kid's attention span is only 45 seconds, MAX; and after that, they are bored and want to do something else. Secondly, they like to counter my instructions with their 'better idea' which totally has no connection to the sport of the day. For e.g. I try to teach them how to pass a basketball by bouncing it off the floor and one kid will go:"I wanna play hide and seek!!"; and quite often instead of learning to practice passing the basketball, the kids will run off with the basketball and try to shoot into the hoop, or kick the ball like a soccer ball or worse, throw the ball at me. I spent half the time blowing the whistle and the other half picking up balls kicked far away. Ah the frustration.

As I think back of that experience, I realized that is probably how we are to God. We are like uncontrollable kids. God tells us what we have to do but we always want to do something else. We think that we have a better plan than what God has for us. We don't want to keep doing the same thing and we wanna try something different. We disobey God. Fortunately, God can be patient with us. Like how He was patient with the Israelites when He brought them out of Egypt, how He allowed Abraham to negotiate for ten righteous people to not destroy Sodom & Gomorrah and how He sent Jonah to Nineveh to proclaim His word and bring them to repentance. More importantly, He always keeps His word and He is patient with us today for a reason.

2 Peter 2:9 (NIV) says:
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

God is giving more time to His own people - those who have not come to the knowledge of His saving grace to be converted and those of us who have come under His grace to continue in our faith and do what we have been called to do, bringing glory to God.